International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

Control of Grid Connected Inverter with PR Controller

and LCL Filter for Interfacing Renewable Energy
Sources
Deepthi.K*
Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering,
Amrita VishwaVidyapeetham
Coimbatore, India.
deepthi.keshavan@gmail.com

A.Vijayakumari
Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering,
Amrita VishwaVidyapeetham
Coimbatore, India.
71viji@gmail.com,

Arun Joshy
Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering,
Amrita VishwaVidyapeetham
Coimbatore, India.
arunjoshy@gmail.com

Keywords: Micro Grid, Distributed Generation, PR Controller, LCL filter

Abstract - This paper presents a design procedure for Proportional-Resonant (PR) controller and
a third order LCL filter which decide the performance of the converter that is used to interface
the renewable energy source to the grid. The primary focus of the paper is to evaluate the
performance of the controller with the filter for a microgrid application. A scaled down model of
microgrid available in the department laboratory is considered for the performance evaluation of
the designed controller. The system is simulated with a 2kVA PWM inverter and tested under
conditions such as change in grid impedance, grid frequency and step change in reference
current. The simulation results show that the PR controller with LCL filter tracks the reference
with zero steady state error and the controller is found to be immune to grid frequency and
micro-grid configuration changes.
.
Introduction
Distributed Generation (DG) systems have paved a way for efficient transmission of electricity
when compared to the conventional centralized generation system. In the traditional systems, the
generation of electricity is heavily dependent on non-conventional sources which have posed a
threat to the environment and also have shown fast signs of depletion. DG systems, though
produce electricity on a smaller scale, they reduce the transmission losses drastically, as they are
located much closer to the loads than in the traditional systems. These systems have an added
advantage of generation augmentation as they can be either grid connected or stand alone systems.
Grid connected DG systems can be seen as a good option to meet the ever increasing demand
for electricity, as they support bidirectional power flow, by integrating various renewable energy
sources (RES). But, they encounter problems of stability unlike the stiff conventional grid. When
a large capacity RES is connected to the grid and is switched on and off due to their intermittent
nature, frequency variations may occur. Hence, for an efficient exchange of power between the
RES and the grid, power electronics plays a very important role. It provides a flexible and an easy
way of connecting the RES to the grid. Hence, the control of these converters becomes very
important.
Voltage Source Inverters (VSI) are used to interface the RES to the grid. These are operated at
high frequencies and thus, are limited by switching losses. These inverters also inject higher order

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harmonics to the grid, thus polluting the grid waveform. They also cause undesirable effects like
voltage swell, sag and grid islanding. Regulatory committees like IEEE and IEC have laid down
several grid codes, which specify the maximum limits for harmonics injected, voltage limits and
also anti islanding of grid. In order to comply with these standards, the quality of the power
injected has to be improved.
In order to attenuate these higher order harmonics, a low pass filter can be connected between
the converter and the grid. This could be a first order L filter or a third order LCL filter. The LCL
filter has an advantage of reducing the size of the inductor used, as compared to that of an L filter
[1]. This in turn, will avoid the system becoming too bulky and also reduces the cost incurred by
using a larger inductor. But, as this is a third order system, the design complexities involved in
this are higher. [2] explains the design procedures for these filters. The design considered here is
on a per unit (p.u) basis which allows the results to be generalized for any application.
Inappropriate designs cause undesirable effect of resonance due to the presence of L and C. This
resonance can amplify the existing harmonics instead of attenuating. Most commonly used
method to damp the resonance is by passive damping technique, which is done by adding a
resistor to the capacitor branch of the LCL filter. This has an obvious drawback of increased
power losses, especially when incorporated in high power systems. This also calls for an
additional heat sink. [3] introduced a concept of virtual resistor. In this, capacitor current was
differentiated and this is then taken as the current reference for the converter used. This was used
to simulate a resistor that is used in passive damping methods. Active damping methods are
generally used in larger systems. This involves the measurement of grid frequency or impedance
in real time. [4] describes a strategy that uses harmonic compensation control to eliminate the
harmonic content of the grid current. Another method is the filter based active damping method to
eliminate resonance, dealt in [5]. Resonance elimination using a gain scheduling method by grid
impedance estimation has been described in [6]. Also, the state feedback method using state
observers is gaining importance. In [7], a damping method is proposed based on optimized pole
placement theory. By implementing any one of the above methods, the resonance can be avoided
and the quality of the injected filtered output can be maintained by incorporating current or
voltage control methods.
Most commonly used current controller in a DG system is a Proportional Integral (PI)
controller or a hysteresis controller to reduce the harmonic distortion present in the injected grid
currents and voltages. PI controllers have been described in depth in [8]-[10]. These papers give a
detailed analysis and modeling of PI controllers. It has also been observed that these controllers
have several drawbacks. PI controllers have an infinite gain at DC zero frequency. Hence, the AC
quantities have to be converted into DC quantities which increase the computational overhead,
due to the multiple transformations of the reference frames. This lowers their steady state
performance and also independent active and reactive power control is not possible. To overcome
this, most of the DG systems are now incorporating Proportional Resonant (PR) controller. These
controllers introduce an infinite gain at the resonant frequency and zero gain at the frequencies
other than the resonant frequency. Hence, these controllers can be used to eliminate the harmonics
effectively at the resonant frequency. [11] - [13] describe, in detail, the procedure employed to
compensate the lower order harmonics, selectively. This is one of the most attractive features of
this controller.
The microgrid considered for the analysis feeds an area of 25km2, having a peak demand of
15MW. This microgrid has the following distributed generators:
1) 5 MW at 0.8pf Micro hydelgenerator

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2) 6 MW at 0.8pf Wind electric generators

3) 6 MW at 0.8pf Wind electric generators

A scaled down version of this power grid is used as the laboratory model. The single line
diagram of this model has been shown in Fig.1. For our analysis, impedance seen by the solar
power plant is considered. Due to the switching on and off of loads and generators, the impedance
seen by this plant varies. It has been observed that the inductive reactance varies between j4.531
to j9.742 , which is +63% to -73% from its average value of j7.135
The objective of this paper is to evaluate the performance of PR controller with a third order
LCL filter for a microgrid application. The basic block diagram of the grid connected DG system
with filter and the current control loop is as shown in Fig.2. The performance of this system
depends on the parameters of the filter and the controller used. In section II, filter topologies have
been described along with the design procedures for damped and undamped systems of LCL
filter.

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Filters
The role of the grid filters in VSI-based grid converter operation is twofold. On one side, the
grid filter should have a dominant inductive behaviour to ensure proper operation of the voltage
source converter, when connected to the utility grid. On the other side, VSI based grid converters
generate PWM carrier and side-band voltage harmonics. These harmonics may cause distortions
in the current injected, which can disturb other sensitive loads and increase losses, if proper grid
filters are not adopted.
Filter Topologies
L Filter - L filter is just an inductor and is simple to design as shown in Fig.3(1). For
applications around and above several kW, like the wind turbine systems, the switching frequency
is low, to limit losses. To attenuate current harmonics, high value of input inductance need to be
used. But, this makes the system bulky and the losses will also be high. Moreover, the system
dynamic response may become poorer. Therefore, this filter is suitable for applications with
higher switching frequency. The transfer function of this first order filter is given as

LCL Filter: The LCL filter consists of a T network with two inductances in series and a
capacitance in parallel as shown in Fig.3 (2). The attenuation of the LCL filter is 60 dB/decade,
for frequency above resonant frequency. Therefore, converters could be switched at lower

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switching frequencies. It also provides better decoupling between the filter and the grid
impedance. Also, the current ripple across the grid inductor is lowered. Therefore, LCL filters are
most suited for grid connected systems of high power ratings. The LCL filter has good current
ripple attenuation even with small inductance values. However, it also has the problem of
resonance and thus brings in unstable states into the system. This calls for a precise design
according to the parameters of the specific converter. Important parameter of the filter is its cutoff frequency. The cut-off frequency of the filter must be minimally one half of the switching
frequency of the converter, because the filter must have enough attenuation in the range of the
converters switching frequency. Also, the cut-off frequency must be at about one decade away
from the grid frequency. The cutoff frequency of the LCL filter can be calculated as

(1)

As the filter is vulnerable to oscillations, it magnifies the frequencies around its cut off frequency.
Hence, a damping resistor is also included in the system, the value of which is calculated as
follows:

(2)

The modelling of the filter has been dealt in detail in [2]. The transfer function of this filter, along
with the damping resistor is given as

(3)

Various steps considered for the filter design are summarized as follows:
1) The resonant frequency is chosen in such a way that 10*f grid <f0<0.5*fsw, where fgrid is the
grid frequency which is 50Hz, fsw is the switching frequency of the converter which is 4kHz.
Therefore, the resonant frequency f0, is selected as 1500Hz.
2) The value of Li and Lg is chosen to be equal to 11mH. By substituting these values in Eq.(1),
the value of capacitor is found to be 2F.
3) Value of damping resistance is chosen such that the active power loss across the damping
resistance is less than 5% of the total power rating. Damping resistance value is found to be 17
using Eq.(2).
With these designed values, the transfer function of damped LCL filter can be written as follows:

(4)

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The Fig.4 shows the bode plot of damped and undamped LCL filter described in Eq. (4). For
undamped condition, Rd is set to zero. It can be observed that, the filter offers very less
attenuation for all frequencies near the grid frequency. Till the resonant frequency, the slope of
plot is 20 dB/decade. After resonant frequency, the slope falls at a rate of 60 dB/decade. This
helps in removing all higher order harmonics from the filter output. In the case of undamped
filter, there is a peak in magnitude response at resonant frequency, which makes the system
unstable. Also, the phase changes sharply from 90 to 90 at resonant frequency. The peak
vanishes with the introduction of damping resistor which also results in active power loss.

Controllers
The main objectives of current control can be summarized as follows:

To maintain a zero steady state error.

To track the reference current precisely even during the transient changes. This calls for a
system which has good dynamic response.

To eliminate or minimise the harmonics introduced by the switching of the converter.

As discussed earlier, PI controllers have several drawbacks. The tracking of the reference
current is not accurate when dealing with AC quantities. As the RES are intermittent in nature, the
value of grid impedance is not constant in the case of micro grids. Therefore, the value of grid
impedance has to be estimated for proper decoupling of voltage components. Else, error would be
introduced and stability would be compromised. It has also been observed that the controller
output is susceptible to external noises. Considering these drawbacks, PI controllers is not seen as
a good option for DG systems. In the system considered, PR controller used as the current
controller
PR Controller - The PR controller is used in the stationary frame unlike the PI controller. The
computation sequence of the PR controller is not complex because there is no transformation from

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the stationary frame to synchronous frame. The three phase feedback signals are first converted to
two phase components and it is then compared with reference values. The resultant error
signal is sinusoidal unlike in the case of PI controllers where all signals are DC. PR controller has
the capability to track a sinusoidal reference without much steady state errors. It also has a feature
of selective harmonic compensation to eliminate lower order harmonics that are present in the
injected grid current.
The transfer function of the PR controller is defined below

(5)
where Kp is the proportional gain, Ki is the integral gain and is the grid frequency.
In brief, the basic functionality of the PR controller is to introduce an infinite gain at a selected
resonant frequency for eliminating steady state error at that frequency. Therefore, it is
conceptually similar to an integrator whose infinite DC gain forces the DC steady state error to
zero.
The Fig.5 shows the PR controller incorporating the harmonic control. Several such harmonic
compensators can be cascaded to resonate at the desired frequency. Since the PR controller acts
on a very narrow band around its resonant frequency , a harmonic compensation can be
implemented without any adverse effect on the behavior of the current controller. Generally, the
lower order harmonics such as 3rd, 5th and 7th order are the most prominent in the current
spectrum. To compensate these, the transfer function to be used is given as follows

(6)

where h is the order of the harmonics. This is the transfer function of an ideal PR controller.
This gives a high gain only at resonant frequency. In order to increase the bandwidth of the
output, a damping factor may be included in the transfer function. But this wider bandwidth
results in the reduction of gain at resonance. The non-ideal PR controller transfer function is given
by

(7)

The PR controller is designed in such a way that it tightly follows the reference without much
steady state errors, to inject power into the grid at unity power factor. The DG system that has
been simulated is shown in Fig.8. The phase voltages of the grid are fed to the Phase Locked
Loop (PLL) block which calculates the instantaneous grid phase angle. This is used to generate
unit vector template of the grid. The unit vectors when multiplied with the required current
magnitude reference give the current reference signals which are then converted to

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components using Clarkes transformation. The actual grid currents are also sensed, converted to
components, and then compared with the reference current to generate the error signals. These
signals form the inputs to the current controller.

The values selected for Kp and Ki are 1 and 2000 respectively. High value of Ki improves the
time response of the system. Kp determines the bandwidth of the controller. The bandwidth can be
improved by introducing a damping factor of value 0.02 at the cost of reduction of gain at the
resonant frequency. With these values, Eq. (7) can be written as

(8)

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The Fig.6 shows the bode plots of ideal and non ideal PR controller using (8). It can be
observed that the peaking has been limited in the non ideal controller with increase in the
bandwidth. Also, the stability plot in Fig.7 shows the variation of Ki with a constant Kp value,
equal to one.

The output of the PR controller is fed as input to Pulse Width Modulation block. This is used
to generate the required pulses for the converter.

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Simulation Results
The proposed system shown in Fig.8 was simulated with different conditions of the grid
impedance and frequency. Under steady state condition, the injected grid current is as shown in
Fig.9. Though distortions are observed in the waveform, the FFT analysis shows that the THD is
within 5%.

To evaluate the performance of the PR controller along with LCL filter, the system considered
is simulated under various conditions. These are summarized as follows:
1)

A step change is given in the reference current from 1.3A to 2.6A rms at t=0.5s. The rise
time is less than 0.0025 seconds which shows the ability of controller to track step
changes. This is shown in Fig.10.

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2)

Variation in grid impedance from 11mH to 22mH at t=0.2s and to 30mH at t=0.28s is
also simulated and is shown in Fig.11. Inspite of the changes in grid impedances, the
active power injected into the grid remains constant. The harmonics are reduced when
more inductances are included in the circuit due to which the current waveform becomes
less distorted

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3)

A step change is given in the grid frequency from 50Hz to 60 Hz at t=0.2s. The current
instantaneously follows the change in frequency without losing stability. The magnitude
of injected current remains the same inspite of frequency changes. This shows that the
controller is immune to frequency changes. Such a step change in frequency is not
expected in practical situations but this result has been included to demonstrate the speed
of tracking. This is demonstrated in the Fig.12.

Conclusions
This paper has presented a design procedure for PR controller and LCL filter to feed power
into the grid from a renewable energy source. The gains of the controller are tuned for the
following design requirements viz. tracking of reference and stability in the operation under
varying grid frequency and configuration change conditions. The stability plots for damped and
undamped systems are presented for various values of controller gains and justifications are
presented. To validate the design, a MATLAB Simulink model is developed and is simulated with
the specifications obtained from the scale down laboratory model of micro-grid. The testing is
carried out under various conditions, such as change in grid frequency, grid impedance and a step
change in reference current. From the simulation results, it has been observed that the controller is
capable of tracking any change in reference irrespective of frequency fluctuation of the grid and
configuration changes in the system. It has been concluded that PR controllers are best suited for
DG systems as it overcomes all the shortcomings found in a synchronous reference frame PI
controller. Also, with these changes, the system does not pollute the grid, as the THD of the
injected current is observed to be within limits.
References
[1] Marco Liserre, Frede Blaabjerg and Steffan Hansen, Design and Control of an LCL-FilterBased Three-Phase Active Rectifier, IEEE Trans. Industry Application., vol. 41, no. 5,
Sept/Oct.2005.

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[2] Parikshith.B.C and Dr.Vinod John, Higher Order Output Filter Design for Grid Connected
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[4] Guozhen Hu, Changsong Chen and Duan Shanxu, New Active Damping Strategy for
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[8] Han Wee Low, Control of Grid Connected Active Converter, Master of Science Thesis,
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[9] Svein Erik Evju, Fundamentals of Grid Connected Photo-Voltaic Power Electronic
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[10] Adrian Timbus, Marco Liserre, Remus Teodorescu, Pedro Rodriguez and Frede
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[11] Miguel Castilla, Jaume Miret, Antonio Camacho, Jos Matas and Luis Garca de Vicua,
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[12] R. Teodorescu, F. Blaabjerg, M. Liserre and P.C. Loh, Proportional resonant controllers
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[13] Guoqiao Shen, Xuancai Zhu, Jun Zhang and Dehong Xu, A New Feedback Method for
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